#CollectiveMemories Monday - Memories of McMurdo's with Claudia Earle and Nancy Knight

Claudia Earle and Nancy Knight

On October 23, 2017, as part of the Collective Memories project, I interviewed Nancy Knight and Claudia Earle. Nancy attended our Townie Childhood Memory Mug Up with the Marjorie Mews Library and was interested in being interviewed about her memories of growing up in St. John’s. Nancy invited her longtime friend and schoolmate Claudia to join in on the interview. The two discuss growing up in different neighbourhoods in St. John’s, attending Bishop Spencer School, celebrating holidays such as Christmas, Valentine’s, and Easter, and playing children’s games. The pair also describe some of the changes they have seen over the years and remember the shops of downtown St. John’s.

Listen to the clip below to hear more about McMurdo’s Drug Store on Water Street or click here to listen to the full interview on Memorial University’s Digital Archives Initiative.

~Terra Barrett

A Month of Christmas Baking: Lassy Mogs #FoodwaysFriday

Photo courtesy Rock Recipes.

December has begun, and Christmas is in the air. If you're anything like me, you've already started your Christmas baking. I love having a variety of cookies, cakes and baked goods for my guests over the holidays. So, for the month of December I will post various traditional Newfoundland recipes that are sure to please any crowd.

Molasses is a staple in the diet of Newfoundlanders, and lassy is simply short for molasses. The origin of 'mog' is a little less clear. Some people believe it means girl, while others say a mog is a small, slow rising cake. Historically, molasses were used as the main form of sweetener for baked goods in Newfoundland. White sugar was more expensive, and so it was saved for special use or for teatime.

Here is the recipe, which yields a dozen cookies (courtesy of Rock Recipes). You can alter the amount of molasses you use based on how dark you want your cookies to turn out.

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups + 2 Tbsp flour
• 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 Tbsp powdered ginger
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2/3 cup molasses
• 2 tsp vinegar
• 1/2 cup chopped dates chopped to the size of raisins
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1 cup toasted pecan pieces

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line 3 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. First, toast the pecans at 350 degrees F so that they can cool to room temperature while you prepare the rest of the recipe.I toast whole pecans on a baking sheet for 10-12 minutes tossing them at the half way point. I then cool them and break each one into 2-4 pieces by hand. This little extra effort ensures nice big crunchy bits of pecan in every bite.
3. Sift together the flour, baking soda and spices and set aside.
4. Cream together the butter and brown sugar for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy.
5. Beat in the egg for another minute or so.
6. Blend in the molasses and vinegar. (The vinegar often occurs in old recipes as a way to boost eh rising action of baking soda.)
7. Fold in the dry ingredients by hand and when almost incorporated fold in the dates, raisins and pecans.
8. Drop the dough by rounded tablespoons onto the parchment lined cookie sheets about 2 1/2 inches apart.
9. Bake for 14 minutes and let the cookies cool on the pan for 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
10. Store in airtight containers. These cookies will freeze very well.

Enjoy, and let us know how they turn out!

-Katie Harvey

Granny and Grandad Go Fishing #FolklorePhoto

Granny Wood. Photo courtesy Anthea Tinline. Date unknown.

These photos are of Athea Tinline's granny, Olive Wood, and her granddad, Ralph Wood, who are prepared to go fishing and/or berry picking in Salmon Cove. Ralph is carrying a kettle in anticipation of having a boil up along the way. Do you usually have a boil up when you go fishing or berry picking?

Grandad Wood. Photo courtesy Anthea Tinline. Date unknown.

Living Heritage Podcast Ep092 Greater Vernon Museum and Archives

Gabriel Newman is a storyteller, actor, and educator based in Vernon, British Columbia. For the past fourteen years he has led the historic and paranormal walking tour, Ghost Tours of Vernon. He also created a community based storytelling food project called Social Potluck, which had him trading food for stories in order to create intimate mini community performance projects. His day job is as the Educational Coordinator at the Greater Vernon Museum and Archives where he creates and presents educational programming for students and adults. We talk about the museum, their innovative programming, and the art of straight razor shaving and sharpening scythes!

Download the mp3

Heart's Content Heritage District Community Meeting

Please join The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador on Wednesday, November 22 at 7:00pm at the Heart's Content Town Hall (154 Main Road) for a community meeting.

Meeting will entail:

• A presentation of the Heritage District Inventory and launch of inventory booklet (copies of the inventory booklet will be available at the meeting) 
• Potential new Heritage Structure Designations and information on Restoration Funding
• Next steps to realize the full potential of the Heart's Content Heritage District

All are welcome! If you require more information please contact Jerry (jerry@heritagefoundation.ca) or Katie (Katherine@heritagefoundation.ca) or call 709.739.1892.

Living Heritage Podcast Ep091 Living Heritage in Saskatchewan

Kristin Catherwood is the Intangible Cultural Heritage Development Officer for Heritage Saskatchewan. She studied Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland, and has a particular interest in vernacular architecture and cultural landscapes. Born and raised in the deep south of Saskatchewan on a family farm, Kristin is passionate about the cultural landscape and folk life of the rural prairies. Her graduate thesis, “Every Place had a Barn: The Barn as a Symbol of the Family Farm in Southern Saskatchewan” resulted in the The Barn Hunter blog which chronicled her cultural explorations of rural life.

In her work with Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), Kristin uses storytelling as a tool to connect people with place, and believes in empowering communities to tell their own stories and curate their own heritage. Her love of and respect for rural life is at the heart of her work, and she once again calls the rural prairies home.

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Tales from Afar: The Legend of Dog Lady Island. #FolkloreThursday

"Tales from Afar: Old Stories from New Residents" is a project to share traditional stories which have come from away, created by the St. John’s Local Immigration Partnership and the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador. This is one of the tales we’ve collected so far. 

The Legend of Dog Lady Island

As told by Jill Jablonski

In Monroe, one of Michigan’s oldest counties, one can find the house of General Custer, many ghosts drifting along the River Raisin, and a certain island in the middle of Plum Creek. On the island, there are Native American artifacts, trash from partying teenagers, the shells of burnt out homes, the remains of mutilated small game, like raccoons and rabbits, and Dog Lady. Dog Lady Island may sound like a wasteland, and perhaps it is. Once upon a time ago, it was known as Fox Island and housed a mansion that served as a religious school for women. In the 1800s the rich Kausler family bought the island and renamed it Kausler Island. They lived in the mansion and had two caretakers. A husband and a wife.

Over the years, it became apparent that nothing would thrive on the island. Pig farms failed as well as dumps, as well as the Kausler family. Not only was their attempt to develop the island by building cheap houses on it a failure but also, their mansion burned to the ground. With no mansion and an island of disappointment, the family moved to town in the 1930s. In fact, everyone on the island moved away. Well, everyone but the husband and wife caretakers.

Some say, like everything else on the island, the marriage failed, and the husband left his wife. Other say that he simply died. Either way, the devastated woman was left completely isolated from society, and with no humans on the island, she turned to dogs for company. She befriended the feral Doberman Pinschers that inhabited the island with her, and then went feral herself, becoming not an owner, but a pack member, walking on all fours, barking, and snarling.

Sadly, as everything else on the island, this relationship with her dogs, would end in failure. One day, the old caretaker tried to eat the kill of the day, which was a raw raccoon, before the senior members of the pack got their fair share, and the dogs turned on her. They bit her tongue and ripped it out of her mouth before going for the eyes and blinding her. Or at least that is the less gruesome theory. Indeed, for if it was not the dogs, then it was the Iron Coffins biker gang, who briefly took over the island, and tortured anyone who trespassed on their territory, especially teenagers. As for why they would have mutilated the woman, the answer is simple; they did unspeakable things to the old woman, and to stop her from talking, they cut out her tongue and blinded her so she could never identify them.

Without her ability to speak, the woman became even more animalistic. She began barking and howling like her dogs. She would jump on cars belonging to teenagers who tried using the island as a lover’s lane, scratching their windshields. Also, when teenagers partied on the island, she would descend upon them like a ferocious beast, and try to maul off their faces. This went on for years, and her apparent hatred of teenagers was exacerbated by the youths themselves. Indeed, Dog Lady did not take too kindly to being prank called by local teenagers who wanted to hear her snarls over the phone.

Eventually, the Iron Coffins tortured Dog Lady to death and put her remains in a wooden coffin that they hid on the island. Because of her violent death, she did not find eternal rest. Now, she roams the island as a vengeful spirit, eating small creatures, tormenting teenagers, and running with her dogs. 

Jill Jablonski is an international student working on her MA in Public Folklore at Memorial University.  

How can I share a story?

Stories can be submitted in written form, or participants can sit down with a collector and record a spoken version of their story. To share a story, you can:

• Email ich@heritagefoundation.ca
• Call Dale Jarvis at 1-888-739-1892 extension 2, or 
• Fill in the online form here: https://goo.gl/forms/QWmJY9haiyItAeop2

Living Heritage Podcast Ep090 Ropes, Rags, Rugs, and Recycling

Dale Jarvis (l) talks to Ruth Green and Trent Hardy. Photo by Gabriel Newman.

In the past, the Newfoundland and Labrador household had to be versatile in order to survive. People made do with what they had and turned old objects into new items. It’s a centuries-old tradition of adaptive reuse and creativity that continues today. On Oct 26, 2017, host Dale Jarvis sat down for a chat at The Rooms with two of Newfoundland and Labrador’s crafty recyclers: Trent Hardy, mat maker and owner of Waste Knot Want Knot; and Ruth Noseworthy Green, artist and rug hooker.

Trent Hardy founded his braided mat-making company on the principle that we should not be simply throwing away materials that can still be used, turning old fishing rope into modern floor mats. Ruth Noseworthy Green’s hooked mats have been exhibited in the Arts and Letters Competition, The Bonavista North Museum Gallery, the Kildevil Far, and hang in private collections across Canada. We talked about the tradition of reuse, reinvention, ropes, rags, and rugs!

Download the mp3

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The Living Heritage Podcast is about people who are engaged in the heritage and culture sector, from museum professionals and archivists, to tradition bearers and craftspeople - all those who keep heritage alive at the community level. The show is a partnership between HFNL and CHMR Radio. Past episodes hosted on Libsyn, and you can subscribe via iTunes, or Stitcher. Theme music is Rythme Gitan by Latché Swing.

Call for Photographs and Memories of St. George's Church in Petty Harbour

Rear view of St. George's Church in Petty Harbour. October 2017. Photo by Terra Barrett. 

Do you have photographs, stories, or anything related to the history of St. George’s Church or School? Did you attend ACW garden parties or Fall sales, concerts or dances at St. George’s Hall? Were you or any of your family a member of the ACW (formerly the Church of England Women’s Association), the Society of United Fishermen (SUF), the Girl’s Friendly Society (GFS), the Church Lad’s Brigade (CLB) or the Select Vestry? Do you have any memories of the Church Wardens or the Church bell ringers?

The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador in conjunction with members of St. George’s Church are hosting a photo sharing and oral history event on Sunday, November 12, 2017 from 2 to 4 PM at St. George’s Church. Please come and share your stories and bring any photos or other items related to the church or school. The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador is recording the history of St. George’s and is looking for the help of local community members to gather the information. Please come on November 12 between 2 and 4 PM and share your memories, photos and other moments.

If you are unable to attend on November 12 and have memories about St. George’s please contact Terra Barrett with the Heritage Foundation at 739-1892, extension 5 or toll free 1-888-739-1892 or by email terra@heritagefoundation.ca